SFC Capital, the UK's most active seed investor (PitchBook, 2020), provides capital and support to British startups. By combining its Angel Network and Seed Funds, SFC has created a unique model that allows investors to get exposure to SEIS- and EIS-qualifying businesses, either directly or through a diversified portfolio curated and managed by SFC’s expert team. In 2020, SFC received a £10m allocation from Business Investments as part of the Regional Angels Programme in support of SFC's mission to back promising early-stage companies from every corner of the UK. SFC Capital is an Appointed Representative of SFC Capital Partners Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 736184).

SFC Capital

Concept Ventures is the UKs largest dedicated pre-seed fund, focused on backing founders reshaping how we work, play, and learn.  As a firm built by industry outsiders, we understand the importance of being flexible, founder-first partners at the earliest of stages. We can shape or join your rounds of up to £2m, with capacity to follow-on to Series-A & beyond.

Concept Ventures

Next generation early stage tech investing, bridging Europe and the USA. 7percent Ventures invest in early stage tech startups which represent billion dollar opportunities.  They are not interested in startups which iterate a market, they are interested in startups that transform them. Change is the prerequisite of disruption. To monopolize a market they believe you must fundamentally disrupt it. To do that, you must have a product which solves a painful problem in a better way than existing solutions or serves a need that is not currently being satisfied. They are sector agnostic, although they do not invest in areas that they do not understand or where they cannot add value.  They will not invest in any business –however good it might be—which is not a billion dollar opportunity.  Your startup must doing something which is scalable enough in a large enough market for a future valuation of $1bn to be possible.

7percent Ventures

Blissgrowth is to build the next generation of companies that focus on increasing human happiness at work and in life.

Blissgrowth

LocalGlobe is a UK-based venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. Seeding ambitious UK founders since 1999 inc Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, Transferwise, and Zoopla.

LocalGlobe

Deeptech Labs is a VC fund, accelerator, and catalyst for deep tech success.

Deeptech Labs

Condense

Condense transforms stream real-world 3D events live into any video game built on Unity or Unreal. The company's real-world events, such as music concerts, are captured in 3D using a portable multi-camera system. The event is then streamed via its cloud platform, and plugins are provided for businesses to integrate the 3D video into their own applications. It connects music artists, sports stars and creatives can perform and play live in the metaverse, to the largest stadium audience imaginable.

UK-based Condense offers a platform to live stream real-world events like music concerts and sports events in 3D virtual environments. This enables remote audiences to experience the performance from different angles using avatars, without requiring specialized VR equipment, as its platform is accessible via a smartphone or browser. The company uses a portable multi-camera system combined with machine learning to capture events in 3D and stream them via its cloud platform.&nbsp;

Metaverse Experience Platforms

Condense is on a mission to bring more live music to the Metaverse

UK-based Condense offers a platform to live stream real-world events like music concerts and sports events in 3D virtual environments. This enables remote audiences to experience the performance from different angles using avatars, without requiring specialized VR equipment, as its platform is accessible via a smartphone or browser. The company uses a portable multi-camera system combined with machine learning to capture events in 3D and stream them via its cloud platform.&nbsp;Its specific offerings include Condense Live (a pre-built venue for artists), Condense Studio (access to its volumetric capture system), and “The Full Works” (for live events with a customized venue).Businesses can integrate Condense's plugins to embed these live 3D video streams, called "Video 3.0," into their metaverse games, mobile apps, or platforms built using Unity or Unreal Engine.Key customers and partnershipsNotable artists to use its platform include Sam Tompkins. In July 2022, Condense partnered with Watershed, Bristol’s cultural cinema and creative technology venue, to give artists access to its technology.

Gather is a virtual space with web-based video calling capabilities, combined with a 2D pixel art-based map and characters that allow individuals to carry out natural conversations in a multitude of settings (office, university, etc.). The company was a part of the Y Combinator Summer 2019 cohort. The platform also offers private virtual meeting spaces with chat, whiteboards, document, and screen sharing features. Further, Gather also offers integrations with other enterprise applications, such as Slack, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. The company claims to have superior compatibility with spatial technology due to its natively built video conferencing system.It operates with a freemium subscription model that is free for up to 10 users, with paid plans starting at USD 7 per month for up to 500 people. The company also generates revenue for virtual conferences (free for up to 10 users), with paid plans starting at USD 3 per user per day.The company has a long-term vision for the metaverse to freely make work and educational opportunities available worldwide. In line with its vision, Gather has hosted over 20,000 virtual professional events, including academic conferences, job fairs, and professional societies (November 2021).Key customer and partnershipsAs of January 2024, the platform was used by over 1,000 teams, including notable enterprises, such as Y Combinator, Yelp, and Notion.Funding and financialsGather raised USD 50 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6425">November 2021</a>. The fresh funds were expected to be funneled toward expanding its operations and business reach.Key competitors: None under the same stage.

Gather

Mytaverse offers a hardware-agnostic 3D metaverse platform that enables enterprises to digitally host a wide range of activities, such as meetings, conferences, training simulations, and tradeshows. The company also allows for the creation of branded metaverses in the form of functioning environments or digital twins. Mytaverse also provides support for CRM integrations and customer profiles, with support for 50 users on any given virtual world. Further, Mytaverse claims that its tech allows for the creation of photorealistic spaces.Key customers and partnershipsNotable customers included Nike, PepsiCo, Dolby and Dassault Aviation, among others.Funding and financialsIn April 2022, Mytaverse raised USD 7.6 million in a seed funding round led by Blumberg Capital. The funds were raised to accelerate product development, expand sales and tech teams, and further expand interactions with brands and support strategic partnerships. As part of the deal, David Blumberg (founder and managing partner, Blumberg Capital) and John Paul Milciunas (general partner, Baselayer Ventures) were expected to join Mytaverse’s board.

Mytaverse

Alta is the game studio that developed Township Tale, an open-world VR multiplayer game set in a medieval fantasy world. Users can engage in multiplayer experiences that revolve around a wide range of activities such as cooking, crafting, PvE, mining, blacksmithing, and carpentry. The game relies on procedural generation, a method to combine computer and human-generated content on a large scale for mass content creation as its key differentiator.The company generates revenue via 1) sales of its game on the Meta Quest Store, priced at USD 10 and 2) sales of in-game cosmetics, ranging from USD 10-80. Users can also show further support to the game devs via monthly donations of USD 10, with players receiving in-game currency (for the purchase of in-game cosmetics), exclusive in-game discounts and the ability to create a private PC server.In April 2024, the company disclosed that it was developing a dark fantasy-themed VR exclusive game, codenamed ‘Project 2’. Key customers and partnershipsAccording to data from MMO Stats, The company was estimated to have a total of ~850,000 players as of January 2024.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (January 2022), the company raised USD 12.4 million in seed funding co-led by Makers Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. The round valued the company at USD 62 million and the fresh funds were expected to be used to expand its team, create new partnerships, and further develop its technology.

Alta

BitDegree is a cryptocurrency learning platform that offers Learnoverse, a gamified and interactive crypto learning metaverse powered by the blockchain, where users will be able to create their own avatars, collect NFTs exclusive to Learnoverse, explore a virtual world (CryptoDegree City) that is divided into topic-based districts with each building representing a specific educational course on crypto, earn tokens through learning, and eventually obtain crypto-degrees. Course creators will be able to purchase NFT land on the platform and create NFT buildings to represent their courses, and its novel tokenomics will allow instructors to earn from their courses without charging the user.Key customers and partnershipsIn September 2022, the company partnered with web3 mobile development infrastructure provider Mirror World to create a course about Web3 gaming within Learnoverse, and NFT platform Lympo, to enable creators to mint NFTs within Leanoverse.Funding and financialsBitDegree raised over USD 1 million in funding from Japanese/Singaporean venture investor Mistletoe in June 2022. The funds were raised to create innovative methods of learning blockchain, crypto, and Web3-related topics within Learnoverse.

BitDegree

Star Atlas is a space-themed metaverse gaming platform built on the Solana blockchain and Unreal Engine 5. The game allows users to interact, organize, and explore unknown regions in space, alongside joining factions and harvesting resources. The platform includes assets that are tokenized, which provides users ownership over these unique assets and enables them to generate income through these assets. Star Atlas' in-game economy and governance is run using its native currencies, POLIS and ATLAS, and, as of May 2022, the platform had nearly 100,000 players.In May 2024, the company announced that it would launch Star Atlas on mobile Android and iOS by the end of the year.The company also developed the SAGE Labs browser-based open-world game in August 2023, which focuses on deep space resource extraction and crafting.Key customers and partnershipsIn July 2023, the company partnered with blockchain indexer Hello Moon, aiming to bolster the scalability and robustness of Star Atlas real-time data handling capabilities, effectively replacing its proprietary in-house solution. Additionally, the company partnered with Web3 company MetaGravity in the same month to scale its concurrent player count on a single server to 30,000 from 5,000.Funding and financialsIn December 2021, Star Atlas received USD 3 million in funding from Animoca Brands in the form of a purchase commitment of Star Atlas NFT spaceships. The NFT spaceships sold to Animoca Brands were part of Star Atlas’ Galactic Asset Offering (GAO) and all the revenue from asset sales from its GAO was expected to be used to further develop the Star Atlas metaverse.

Star Atlas

Platforms that offer collaborative 2D and 3D environments for enterprise and education-related use cases

Platforms that facilitate entertainment-focused virtual events and concerts

Platforms that focus on multiplayer gaming experiences in virtual worlds

Platforms that focus on social interaction, experience creation, and virtual land purchases

Platforms that enable the creation of avatars that are used as digital identities in metaverse platforms

Platforms that offer virtual worlds for multiplayer social gaming experiences enable users to create experiences and conduct transactions (e.g. buying virtual land)

Some solutions in the gaming platforms segment use AI for non-playable characters (NPCs)

Some gaming and social metaverses are decentralized, with features such as play-to-earn and NFT minting

Social gaming and pure-play social platforms facilitate virtual land transactions using crypto

Most solutions in this hub use AR/VR for virtual events, enterprise, and social/gaming use cases

Virtual worlds and web3 are the primary enabling technologies for the metaverse industry

Work platforms offer virtual spaces for enterprise use cases

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Condense, a virtual streaming company from Bristol, has accumulated GBP 500,000 (~USD 630,000) in investment from BBC Ventures, the investment division of BBC. In addition to this, BBC has entered into a partnership with Condense to employ its unique technology for crafting immersive live events and virtual experiences as a part of the New Music Portal initiative, specifically targeting young audiences.
 As stated by the company, this funding will help ensure that BBC benefits from the growth of Condense.
 The innovative technology by Condense lets artists present in a capture space, which is subsequently transformed into a 3D simulation and broadcasted live to a virtual event spot. This lets remote viewers to perceive the performance from various view points using avatars, without needing to have specialized VR equipment.
 
</div> Analyst QuickTake: 
 The small amount of funding raised is reflective of the dampened landscape for metaverse event platforms. For example, Meta shut down its Horizon Venues app in <a href="https: 
//www.beyondgames.biz/22366/meta-shuts-down-venues-app-and-builds-events-into-horizon-worlds/"> June 2022 </a> , with its features moved into Horizon Worlds instead. This was followed by the company’s decision in <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/18340"> May 2023 </a> to remove users' ability to create their own events on the platform.

Condense

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